The ALMA Antennas and the Magellanic Clouds

Time-lapse video of the ALMA antennas performing observations during the Cycle 0 of Early Science Observations. Because they are pointing at the same target in the sky at any moment, their movements are perfectly synchronised. As the sky appears to rotate clockwise around the south celestial pole, the Magellanic Clouds – irregular dwarf galaxies that are orbiting the Milky Way - can be seen in the video. ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array is the largest astronomical project in existence and is a truly global partnership between the scientific communities of East Asia, Europe and North America with Chile. ESO is the European partner in ALMA.